Power grids around the world infiltrated by hackers

7 September 2017

Transcript

A report claims hundreds of power grid locations were accessed after a large hacking campaign.
Simon Tech researchers found the operation called, DragonFly 2.0 was an effort to infiltrate power grid systems in Turkey, Switzerland, and the United States.
The method?
Phishing emails sent to energy industry employees designed to trick targets into accidentally giving access to infrastructure systems Fake flash updates were also cited as part of the campaign.
Dragonfly 2.0 started as early as 2011 and has stretched all the way into this year.
Symantec says the outcome is multiple power grids at risk with login credentials potentially malicious operators the ability to cause serious problems like blackouts or blocking traffic signals.
The Department of Homeland Security told CBS News it was, quote aware of the report and reviewing it, unquote.
Security companies like Dragos believe this operation is still in it's spying and gathering intel stages and that hackers likely still don't have all the pieces in place for a shut down attack.
Fortunately, here in the US power grids are designed to withstand outages of many different kinds.
So, in the event that a grid does fall to a hacking attack..
It won't trigger an outage across the rest of the country, leaving us all in total darkness.
For more, head to CNet.com.
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